Models and modeling are polysemous terms that take on distinct but related meanings in the sciences, humanities, arts, and everyday language. Models can be material entities or mathematical constructs, they can be living organisms or makeshift frames for found objects, they can be of a system or for a project. This workshop will focus on how the meaning of models changes as it travels between different domains, and on how a given model is constructed and broken depending on how tightly it is bound to its reference. Opposing the idea that models are mere representations, contributions will inquire into their generative properties: to make a model involves abstractions and idealizations that can have very real effects in its target system. Likewise, to break a model often leads to novel theoretical insights, revealing hidden presuppositions and opening up the possibility of making, and breaking, again.

Since the inception of the project in Fall of 2022, several foci have emerged in the collective research into model theories and modeling practices. These include the formal or relational qualities of models, their temporal dimensions, the incommensurability between a model and its object, and models’ world-building potential. This workshop aims to bring together and extend these perspectives in a broader, interdisciplinary dialogue.

In English

14:30–16:00 Welcome and Panel I

Marc Anthony Cayanan:
The Exophonic Lyric: A Poetics

Marta Aleksandrowicz:
Aesthetic Modeling at the Limit of the Human Montage

Natascia Tosel:
Remake and Repair! Modeling Institutions & Instituting Models

16:00 Coffee Break

16:40–18:10 Panel II

Alina-Sandra Cucu:
Crises in Modelling

Ben Woodard:
The Statistical Cloud of Race

Ariel Caine:
Geo-Endoscopies

18:10 Coffee Break

19:00 Keynote
Kathy-Ann Tan:
Contrapunctal Readings and Queerings of the Cultural Archive

14:30–16:00 Panel III

B Camminga:
Trans Geographies & (Re)Territorialisations Migration, Memoir and Metaphor

Maria Dębińska:
Failed Model, or Comparing the Incommensurable

Ross Shields:
From Model to Märchen Wittgenstein and Paul Ernst

16:00 Coffee Break

16:40–17:40 Panel IV

Julia Sánchez-Dorado:
Abstraction as a Strategy for Worldmaking

Ruth Ramsden-Karelse:
Towards a Genealogy of Moffie

17:40 Coffee Break

18:00 Discussion

18:45 Short Break

19:00 Keynote
Quill R. Kukla:
Maps and the Risks of Visual Representation

With

Marta Aleksandrowicz
Ariel Caine
B Camminga
Mark Anthony Cayanan
Alina-Sandra Cucu
Maria Dębińska
Ruth Ramsden-Karelse
Julia Sánchez-Dorado
Ross Shields
Natascia Tosel
Ben Woodard

Special guests:

Quill R. Kukla
Kathy-Ann Tan

Organized by

current ICI Fellow cohort

KV WS Models